Month: August 2013

Thank you, Miley.

Posted on by Phil Corbett

Unless you have been asleep since Sunday or have just chosen to retreat from society, you most likely have heard about the MTV Video Music Awards and the controversial performance of Miley Cyrus. Actually, after watching a video of it online, controversial is way too tame of a word to describe what I saw.

Perverted, filthy, and disgusting come much closer to doing justice.

Whether the performance was a true reflection of the new Miley or just a marketing and publicity ploy to show Miley has grown up, she has definitely made the transition from teen idol to adult sensation. The more the performance is talked about, the more successful she will most likely become. (Talk about perverted.)

To be fair, Miley was not the only one involved in the action. Robin Thicke played a significant part in the performance, as well, but since I had no real idea of who he was until I Googled him and found out he is a pretty big deal currently (and is the son of Alan Thicke from Growing Pains), my thoughts focused on Miley and the changes she has made.

You see, I used to watch, and re-watch, Miley’s Hannah Montana movie and shows with my daughter and truly enjoyed them. I also love the messages in some of her songs, especially The Climb.

Maybe she had to do something shocking to continue to shed the squeaky-clean image she developed as a child star so she could appeal to a wider audience. Maybe the pressure facing a 20-year-old superstar to stay relevant and in the limelight clouded her judgment, along with the judgment of all of her people. I am not excusing or condoning her actions, but since I have no idea of the pressures a 20-year old in her situation is under, I am also not going to condemn her. She chose her actions and will need to live with the results of them.

Instead, what I want to do, and what I think all parents of young children should do, is thank her.

Yes, that is correct – thank her.

Miley’s actions should be a reminder of why we, as parents and other people who care about the well being of young people, need to encourage our children to find role models closer to home and to stop worshiping at the celebrity altar. (I guess many adults could be encouraged to do that, as well.)

I am glad my daughter has not yet been bitten by the celebrity-worshiping bug (unless you count Harry, Hermione, and Ron as celebrities). I am glad she has not yet looked to celebrities to decide how to live her life.

I want my daughter to look to her teachers at school, who, with true passion and little pay, empower our children to learn and believe in themselves.

I want my daughter to look to our neighbor, who earned her PhD while parenting and working from home, and is now empowering teachers to become the best teachers they can be.

I want my daughter to look to her godmother, who helps lead her local Girls on the Run program, empowering girls from 3rd to 8th grade to be emotionally and physically healthy and confident.

I want my daughter to look to her mother, who, after being a stay-at-home mom, working part time in direct sales, successfully jumped into the corporate world and now empowers other women to be successful in business and in life.

With so many wonderful women to influence my daughter on a daily basis, I hope she never needs, or wants, to look to the celebrity world for examples on how to live her life.

Those @#*& Legos

Posted on by Phil Corbett

Admit it. How many of you, who have kids in your life, have used that phrase while walking through the house late at night? I know I have said those words more than once, on my way to watch TV downstairs or to check in on one of my kids. Usually, I follow my utterance of the phrase with a mental reminder to tell the kids to pick up the Legos the next day.

As with many of my other reminders, I usually put the task off for another day.

I’m okay with that. We have accumulated many Legos during the past 10 years or so and they are used quite often by all three of my kids, as well as the neighbor kids. Even adults who stop by find themselves playing with them every so often. Sure, playing with Legos can routinely lead to arguments over a particular piece, of the thousands we have, that two or more of my children want. Still, when the Legos are lying out, I know my kids have been using their minds, their creativity, and their social skills. I like that in a toy.

A few years ago, I attended an educational workshop at which a presenter showed a video of an electronic toy, made up of a handful of little squares with video screens. I do not remember exactly how the toy worked, but when individual squares were connected, a change in the video screens occurred, resulting in different designs. The video was pretty impressive, especially with how quickly the person demonstrating the toy could reposition the squares to create new designs.

When the video was finished, the presenter predicted the toy would become more popular than Legos.

He lost me on that one. I had a hard time envisioning millions of kids lying on the living room floor, surrounded by hundreds of electronic squares.

He also said the company producing the toy would be buying out the Legos company. Again, hard for me to believe.

To settle my mind, I did a little research. With a quick Google search, I learned The Lego Group was, and still is, a privately-held company, owned by the family of the man who invented Legos in 1932.

In addition, my kids and I recently spent some time at Legoland at the Mall of America. Based on what I observed, we must not be the only parents whose children enjoy playing with Legos. The store was packed with kids, and adults, using their imagination.

I like electronics. I like electronic toys. My kids play with electronic toys. I prefer, though, toys that do not need batteries or any other power source other than what a child possesses inside him or her. Also, I would rather have my children determining the direction of their play and not computer programmers.

A few weeks ago, I decided to get down on the living room floor and try my hand at creating a Lego masterpiece. With the help of my 7-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter, I created a swimming pool, with a diving board, hot tub, and a water slide with a turn. My kids were even able to get their Lego people to successfully traverse the slide and land in the pool.

It was one of my favorite days of playing with the kids. No electronic squares could have created the enjoyment the three of us had together that afternoon.

Who knows? Maybe someday a few electronic squares will be more popular than Legos.

Hopefully, not in my lifetime.

Definitely, not in our house.

The Big Red Shovel

Posted on by Phil Corbett

A few weeks ago, my neighbors had their sidewalk edged. The person edging did quick work using a gas-powered edger. When he was finished, the neighborhood sidewalk looked very neat.

That is, until it reached our yard.

It had been awhile so I figured I better edge our sidewalk, too. I went to the shed and took out the non-gas-powered, duct-taped-together, hand edger left to us by the previous owners of our house. With the edger and a hoe, I trimmed up about 175 feet of sidewalk, increasing the width of the sidewalk by 6-8 inches (I said it had been awhile).

It was a good workout. Thankfully, my 7-year-old son helped out, too. He offered to pick up the grass chunks I had just cut from the sidewalk. With a wheelbarrow (or should I call it a wheelborrow since I always use my neighbor’s) and the Discovery Toys® Big Red Shovel, my son proceeded to move up and down the sidewalk, scooping up all the pieces of sod. Over an hour later, when he had finished, he had a wheelbarrow heaping full, as full as it could be filled without sod falling out of it.

I wish I had taken a picture because I was in awe of what my son had done. The sidewalk was clean and he had scooped up the sod with no help from me, not even moving the wheelbarrow for him.

I should not have been surprised because he is my worker. He is the one who gets excited for snowstorms because of the opportunity to shovel snow (again using the Big Red Shovel). He is the one who usually asks to help out if he sees me working in the garden or yard. He is also the one who, along with a few of the neighbors, likes to dig holes in the yard (yep, Big Red Shovel).

His feat of child power truly impressed me.

It also pleased me. Living where we live, it is not always easy to find opportunities for kids to display their work ethic. Oftentimes, a parent needs to be very creative to come up with chores that actually test a child’s mettle.

Growing up on the edge of the small town of Staples, my seven siblings and I had plenty of chores to do to keep us busy (at least it seemed that way to me). My mom was the oldest of three girls on a Wisconsin dairy farm so she knew how to work. She also knew how to put us to work. For most of my growing up years we heated with wood so there was always woodcutting to do, in addition to wood stacking, wood splitting, and carrying wood into the house. We also pulled our share of weeds from the garden.

One of the more unique chores was nail pulling. A family friend was a contractor and when his company remodeled a home, the debris from the remodeling was often dropped off in our yard. We dug through the refuse for building materials we could use for projects around the house, usually wood and the nails, which needed to be pulled and straightened. I am not sure how many ice cream buckets of nails we filled but it was probably more than the buckets of ice cream we ate.

Though I am not sure nail pulling was a favorite chore for any of us, it was a valuable experience in many ways. First, the experience embedded in me the value of reusing and repurposing things and not just always throwing them away.

More importantly, the nail pulling and the other chores we were assigned instilled in us the value of working hard and getting our hands dirty.

Our neighbors growing up, the Petersons, had a snowmobile. I remember once saying to my mom “Why can’t we have a snowmobile? The Petersons have one.” My mom responded, “We’re not the Petersons.”

We also had family friends who lived on a farm, the Olanders. I remember one time complaining about all the work we had to do. Mom responded with something in the line of “you don’t do as much work as the Olanders.” I remember wanting to say back, “We’re not the Olanders.”

I am glad I didn’t.

In addition to not wanting to taste soap or have my behind swatted, I can look back now and be grateful for all the chores we got to do.

And also be thankful we weren’t the Olanders.